Yet when all is said and done, records indicate that farming offers more chances of success than almost any other line of business endeavor. A retail merchant, according to statistics, has from two to four chances in ten to conduct his business successfully for fifteen years; a manufacturer has from two to seven chances to do the same. Farming is conspicuous for its small percentage of out-and-out failures. Living is practically assured, which gives the farmer a distinct working advantage to begin with. He enjoys a cash market and is not called upon to suffer bad debt losses. He is in an industry that is absolutely essential, which cannot be destroyed by any shifting of circumstances. The greatest need is doubtless for cost-accounting systems which will serve as a guide, not only to prevent unwise purchases, but to indicate wise expenditures in improvements that will bring a good return on investment, and to show definitely the amount of profit obtained on each transaction. Next to this in importance is perhaps the need for a thorough understanding of crop rotation and the principle of diversified farming as a means of offsetting losses in one line with gains in another. The securing of credit to enable expansion, and the adoption of labor-saving devices are also essential. Profits and losses in farming must be reckoned, as in all other businesses, on averages over a term of years. But the future offers better assurance than ever before to the man who is a good agriculturist and at the same time a skillful business manager. We Stand or Fall Together WITH some elements of the American public there seems to persist the conviction that the great packing concerns are seeking the injury of livestock producers to their own enrichment. How such an idea can be seriously harbored by thinking men is hard to understand. For the packing industry to plan for the farmer anything but prosperity is to endanger or destroy the source of supply of the raw material by which it lives and grows. It should be perfectly plain that the packers are selfishly interested in encouraging the producer. Their selling efforts are directed towards disposing of the largest possible volume of meat products, at the best price obtainable in competition with other foods, in order that they may maintain large volume of livestock purchases at prices that will encourage both quantity and quality of production. Between the producer and the consumer, between the buying and the selling price, the packers operate upon a smaller margin of profit than any other large industry. On invested capital they have realized an average of about 9 per cent over a term of years, on volume of sales about 2 per cent, and on each pound of meat less than one-half of a cent. At the same time the risks of the business are greater than in other lines, both on account of the perishable nature of the product and the violent fluctuations of food prices, the causes for which cannot always be foreseen.